SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Next time you plug an address into an app for directions or tag a social media post with your location, please take a second to thank Gladys West. She was an African American mathematician who helped to develop the algorithms that made GPS possible. Here's what she told the TV show "TPiZone" in 2019.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "TPIZONE")
GLADYS WEST: What we did was got the accuracy of where things were located all around the world in this database.
SIMON: Gladys West died last week at the age of 95. Marvin H. Jackson was a friend who co-authored her memoir, and he joins us now. Mr. Jackson, thanks so much for being with us, and we're sorry for your loss.
MARVIN H JACKSON: Oh, you're very welcome. Anytime I get to talk about Gladys West, it's an honor.
SIMON: Well, help us understand the difference she's made in our lives.
JACKSON: Oh, she made such a big difference. The way we travel today couldn't be done without contributions that Dr. Gladys West made. You know, for me, it was - she made a big difference in my life because Dr. West and my mom were born the same year. They both were in segregation in the South. They both finished first in their high school class. They both got scholarships to HBCUs. She was so much like my mom. We just became like family.
SIMON: I gather Dr. West born in 1930 in rural Virginia, but she dreamed of a different life than what her family had in agriculture - let's put it that way - didn't she?
JACKSON: Yes, she did. She was a hard worker, but she wanted to do a different type of work, where she would wear away-from-home clothes, instead of home clothes. Home clothes with jeans and working in the farm. And she just dreamed that one day she would do that. And it's such an inspiring story because there are a lot of Black girls, especially back then and now, even, who might have that same dream. And maybe they hear that and say, well, I can be like her. I always tell Gladys - whenever I would talk to her, I always say, you are the real greatest of all time. People always say it's somebody like Beyonce, but I say it's really you. You are the hero for our young girls.
SIMON: Dr. West began to work at what's now the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Dahlgren in Virginia, only the second Black woman to do so. Did she ever talk to you about what it was like to work there during the time of segregation?
JACKSON: Yes. It was the beginning of African Americans working in professional ranks in the federal government, and she had never been around white people in an integrated situation in school or work or anywhere. And neither had the white people been in that situation with people like her. So she said it was just difficult for everyone. Her husband was the second Black person there.
SIMON: This is Ira.
JACKSON: Ira. What a great person he was, as well. They were able to help each other get through that whole situation.
SIMON: Why were the accomplishments of Dr. Gladys West relatively unnoticed for so long?
JACKSON: It was a career basically for white men. People who got all the recognition was, of course, going to be the white men. She was just doing her job. You know, of course, she was taught always be twice as good as her white male counterparts. And she said that's what she aimed to do every day.
SIMON: Do I get this right, Mr. Jackson, that despite her crucial role in developing GPS, she preferred to use paper maps when she drove?
JACKSON: Yes, she and her husband.
(LAUGHTER)
JACKSON: She and her husband always told me that, and we laughed and joked about it, but she did. She said she was old school.
SIMON: What kept her going through all that she saw in her life?
JACKSON: People who inspired her, people like her Grandma Plum (ph), who lived to be 111. Grandma Plum was born right after Civil War. Her parents had been slaves, and she had seen a little bit of everything in life, been called every kind of name from colored to Negro to African American. She had seen the invention of cars and airplanes and telephones to computers. She was always inspired by her calm way and just that dream, wanting to do something different, kind of taking a road that no one else had taken in her neighborhood.
SIMON: Marvin Jackson, remembering the life of his friend, the mathematician Gladys West, who died last week at the age of 95. Thank you so much for being with us.
JACKSON: Oh, it's my pleasure. She's the greatest person I've ever been around.
(SOUNDBITE OF BLITHE FIELD'S "JTEL") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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